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16 Apr 2014

Tony Award winner Liev Schreiber is set to star as radical abolitionist John Brown in the historical drama "The Good Lord Bird," according to Deadline.com.

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He will co-star with Jaden Smith ("The Pursuit of Happyness," "The Karate Kid"), who will play Henry "Onion" Shackleford.

Adapted from James McBride's novel, which won the 2013 National Book Award, the film is set in 1856 Kansas and tells the story of Shackleford, a young slave who links up with Brown and travels the nation with his group of freedom fighters.

The story is told through the eyes of Onion, who witnesses Brown's historic campaign and encounters Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman while traveling to the Harper's Ferry raid that helped spark the Civil War.

Schreiber is a Tony Award winner for Glengarry Glen Ross and received Tony Award nominations for Talk Radio and A View from the Bridge. He is a two-time Golden Globe nominee for "RKO 281" and "Ray Donovan" and has appeared in "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and "Taking Woodstock."